January 2008

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Born and raised in central Maine, my youth was spent mowing the lawn, kicking a soccer ball against the garage doors, and trying to sneak sugar cereal out of the kitchen cupboards after I was put to bed. More about Tim

Posted at 1:44 PM on January 29, 2008
by April Luginbuhl

Well, it looks like we'll be moving in the next few weeks. What a great time to clean the fridge and pantry and think about restocking with local. In focusing on the fridge and oil/vinegar pantry I've learned two things:

1) I do fairly well with organic or local oils and vinegars, I’d say about 40% local or organic. Of course many of those local vinegars were purchased from farm stands while on vacation elsewhere.

2) I did all my nice, organic and local root vegetables an injustice this fall. I didn’t feel well from about October to December, so I was not as good about storing foods like potatoes. I just cleaned the last of the root veggies out in a fry-up last night. Maybe I’ll do better this year.

This leads me to ask the question, especially of people who have had children or dealt with long illnesses that make food prep difficult, is there a good way to keep up with local foods when not feeling your best? In my limited experience, unless you have a good system already in place (which I clearly did not) it seems that food procurement and storage sort of falls apart. Are there any tricks out there that work?

I have hope for my new home in part because I’ll have more pantry space, actual cool storage space for those root veggies, and there’s a full freezer in the basement. Yay! Will just increasing the storage space be enough?